Mateo, sensibly, kept looking forward, all too aware of the cold barrel which rested just above his ponytail; and then his friend got the message and got his eyes forward too, carrying on driving just as I’d asked.
‘What the fuck you want, mano?’ the driver breathed, almost too scared to talk but getting the words out anyway.
‘I want to have a word with your friend Mateo here,’ I said. ‘And you’re just going to drive us around until I’m finished.’
‘Then you’ll kill us!’ the driver whispered, already puling the car over to the side of the road. With my free hand I banged my walking staff into the back of his head, just to get his mind back on task.
‘Don’t even think about stopping the car,’ I warned him, ‘or I will kill you both, here and now.’
The driver nodded slowly and got the car back straight. ‘Where you wanna go man?’ he asked, and I gave him a quick set of directions. They weren’t for any destination in particular, they were just so that he didn’t decide to drive me into the middle of a gangbangers convention with a bunch of his best friends; he seemed harmless enough, but you could never tell.
‘You’ve been quiet there,’ I said to Mateo. ‘I hope you’re able to say something, or this will be a real short trip for all of us.’
‘Okay mano,’ he managed, ‘it’s just hard to fuckin’ think with a gun at your head, you know?’
Actually I did know, but this wasn’t a time to be swapping war stories. ‘It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you try,’ I said pleasantly.
‘Yeah man, I’ll try, okay? I’ll fuckin’ try. What do you want?’
‘I want to see what you can remember about a little thirteen year old girl called Elena Rosales. You probably remember her – she was your cousin, you pimped her out to your buddies, then you drove her over here the night she went missing.’
There was a pause from the front seat, then I saw Mateo’s shoulders slump.
‘Aw, shit,’ was all he could manage.
But I knew there would be more.
Chapter Four
We’d been driving around the alternatingly empty or terribly congested streets of Nuevo Laredo for over an hour, and I’d learned plenty.
Mateo had first denied having anything to do with his cousin, but after a bit of persuasion – involving the percussive use of the revolver butt on his pitted, stubbled face – he had admitted to much of what Noemi had told me.
He had helped bring the girls across in his car, and they’d had a great time in the town’s party zones, most notably a local nightclub called Eclipse – apparently a prime location for underage kids from over the river.
Unfortunately, the club was also a hangout for various cartel hoodlums – and Santiago Alvarado was one of them. Mateo denied any involvement with the local gangs, and from my current experience with him and his friend, I was of a mind to believe him; but the girls apparently had become involved, both seeking the attentions of Santiago.
He’d gone with Noemi first, and then with Elena; the night Elena had gone missing, Mateo had been working on the instructions of Santiago, who’d told him to bring her across alone, and drop her off outside Eclipse to wait for him.
Mateo had done so – reluctantly, to hear him tell it – and had hightailed it out of there, not willing to get caught up in whatever he wanted with her. It clashed slightly with his claim that he had no gang affiliations, but just because he wasn’t a part of the cartels didn’t mean that he wouldn’t do what they told him – to have told Santiago ‘no’ would have been the same as signing his own death warrant.
I loathed Mateo for the way he had used the two young girls, found his proclivities disgusting and offensive; but it was also clear that he had no real involvement in organized crime himself, was just a party boy like Noemi was a party girl. Innocent, as far as he could be.
Still, I was tempted to shoot him; he’d brought his teenage cousin into Mexico for the sexual pleasure of his buddies, maybe even himself. He was the scum of the earth, but – on balance – I decided that killing him might just bring added complications. I wasn’t a murderer, after all.
Santiago himself had risen another couple of rungs up the corporate ladder over the past three years, was now running his own little pack of street dealers; not in the big leagues just yet, but taking scraps from the table.
Mateo was less sure about Elena though, claiming he had never seen her since the night he had left her to meet Santiago outside Eclipse, that he had no idea what had become of her.
I wasn’t sure whether I believed him – was his recalcitrance on the subject because he really didn’t know, or just because he was more afraid of Santiago and the cartels than he was of me? If it was the latter, I couldn’t really blame him – for all my bluster, I wouldn’t cut off any body parts, whereas the cartels would be more than happy to do so.
‘Where does Santiago hang out now?’ I asked. ‘Still at the Eclipse?’
‘Nah, man,’ Mateo said. ‘That place done closed down now, man. Too many gunfights there, too many people dead, you know? No, he works his crew over in La Zona.’
‘La Zona?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, La Zona de Tolerancia, the zone of tolerance, sometimes called Boy’s Town – it’s a walled compound down off Calle Monterrey, full of brothels and bars, you know? It’s perfect for Santiago, a real captive audience. And it’s got its own police protection too, got a fuckin’ substation of municipal cops there, you know? They leave the way clear for Santiago and his crew.’
I nodded my head in thought. It made sense; Santiago worked for Z201, a sub-gang of the all-powerful Los Zetas cartel who owned pretty much all the vice operations in the city. If there were brothels there being protected by the police, Santiago’s operation would receive equal backing.
I wondered, briefly, if Elena would be there; then I scratched the thought from my mind and focused my attention back on Mateo.
‘Santiago there often?’
‘Every night, man! Every night – he’s a boss, he’s gotta keep his eye on things, you know?’
Okay, I thought, okay; I had my next target.
I would make my way to Boy’s Town that night and seek out Santiago Alvarado, see what he could tell me about the disappearance of Elena Rosales.
‘Pull over here,’ I told Mateo’s friend, who dutifully and eagerly did as I asked.
‘You said you weren’t gonna kill us, mano,’ he reminded me, his voice still breathless.
‘And I won’t,’ I said. ‘Unless you say anything to anybody about this. Don’t forget,’ I said, tapping the snub-nose revolver against the back of Mateo’s head, ‘I know where you live, as do my associates.’ I didn’t have any associates of course, but Mateo didn’t have to know that. I tapped the driver on the head next, making sure I had his attention.
‘Show me your driver’s license,’ I said, and watched as he slipped it reluctantly out of the sun visor. I studied it, then handed it back. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘and now I know where you live, too. So please. Don’t make me do anything I might regret.’
The car was pulled over now, just outside the Hospital San Jose on Sonora, near the center of town.
Without another word, I was out of the car and gone, leaving the two young men behind me both scared, and barely able to believe had what just happened to them.
I headed west toward a restaurant I’d seen as we’d driven past. El Papalote Taco and Grill – perfect for a hungry man. I’d not eaten for a long time, and it had been a busy day.
Would they warn Santiago? I asked myself as I walked along Sonora. It was fifty-fifty either way, but I didn’t think they would; if they did, they would have to tell him how I knew how to find him, which would mean they would probably be killed as snitches. On the other hand, if they didn’t tell him and Santiago got the better of me and I revealed who had told me, then their deaths would probably be much, much worse.
So it was still fifty-fifty, and I wouldn’t know until later tonight.
But I wasn’t one for worrying unduly, especially when I was hungry.
What would be, would be; if Santiago was ready and waiting for me, then so be it.
But right now, there was a plate full of tacos waiting with my name all over it.
Chapter Five
La Zona de Tolerancia was, without a doubt, one of the most depraved, depressing and desperate shitholes I had ever visited.
It was late night now and the place was filling up with characters of every sort. At least I wasn’t too out of place here – many of my own citizens crossed the border expressly to use the services of ‘Boy’s Town’, and I was among plenty of Caucasian company.
Earlier that day – after eating my fill at El Papalote – I’d wandered over to the Avenue César López de Lara to find a hotel, just in case I had to stay here longer than I wanted to. I’d chosen the main drag as it was comparatively peaceful and well looked after. There was a strong police presence, with the Mexican military also being in evidence; it therefore looked safe, as far as anywhere in Nuevo Laredo could be.
I found the Hotel Cólon Plaza not long after, just a short walk south. It looked reasonable, and so I’d gone in and taken a room for just over seven hundred pesos a night. One of the best hotels in the city for a little over forty dollars; maybe not everything here was as bad as I thought.
I’d had a shower, changed to fresh clothes from my day-sack, then rested up for a few hours. I could have done a recon of the area during daylight hours, but I hadn’t wanted to draw attention to myself – and being one of the only people wandering through the walled-in streets before dark would definitely have marked me. The people there would have a sixth sense for things being out of place – if they wanted to survive more than a night or two, that is – and solo surveillance would have been a tough task.
I’d therefore chosen to get some rest before hitting the streets again; during combat operations, I’d learnt to nap when the opportunity presented itself, as you never knew when it might do so again.
When I set off that night – delighted to learn that the Zone was only a few blocks directly west of the hotel – I decided to leave my wooden walking pole behind; it would make me stick out like a sore thumb, and I didn’t want to attract attention too early on.
I also decided to leave the .38; if Mateo was right and there was a police presence, they might refuse me entry. Or even worse, I could end up in jail; and a Mexican jail was definitely somewhere I didn’t want to be.
I didn’t consider myself to be weaponless, however; within minutes of entering the Zone, I would have a bottle or a beer glass in my hand, and there were always plenty of weapons of opportunity available in bars, from ashtrays to chairs – the only limit was the imagination.
I’d come off the main road of Calle Monterrey at just past midnight, after passing by the crumbling wall which separated – barely – La Zona from the rest of the city. I’d had to pass through a military-style guard post on the way in – apparently a remnant of times past, as it was unmanned and in a state of near-ruin – and entered another world entirely.
A call from my right drew my attention to a uniformed cop however, and it became clear that the guardhouse – while looking like it hadn’t been used in years – was actually still an active security point for the Zone.
The cop – dark and grim-faced – had been chatting to a young guy by the compound wall, in what looked to be something of a business meeting. But when he saw me, he broke off from what he was doing and approached.
He gave me a quick search, and I found myself grateful that I’d left my weapons behind in my hotel room.
‘Been here before?’ he asked in English and – up close now – I could see how sweat-stained his uniform was, how few teeth he had left, how he smelled of body odor and cigarettes.
I shook my head.
He was about to speak, then saw a taxi pull up outside the compound, three more white Americans getting out and stumbling over, already half-drunk.
‘Wait,’ he told me, as he approached the men and searched them one by one; I guessed he couldn’t be bothered repeating himself, and wanted to give us the bad news all together.
‘Okay,’ he said when he was finished, ‘now listen. You boys be good, okay? You give no trouble, you get no trouble, you understand? Some of the people here can be . . . nasty,’ he said with a snigger, ‘know what I mean? Try not to upset them.’
He gestured to his left, to what looked like an abandoned old-West jail; although on closer inspection, the metal bars were all new, and an attempt had been made to repaint it. And – over the cacophonous noise of the nearby bars – I could just make out the sounds of a boxing match being played on a TV somewhere inside; probably the cop’s colleagues, and who knew how many there were in there. Presumably, this was the substation of the municipal police that Mateo had mentioned. It looked in one hell of a state, but would do just as good a job of keeping a man locked up as any other cell block.
‘And if we need to come and get you, if we need to sort things out, then there’s a home waiting for you right there,’ he said. ‘And believe me, you don’t want to end up in there.’
He tried to smile then, but it came out more as a malicious leer. ‘Welcome to La Zona!’ he exclaimed in mock happiness, hand sweeping out to the interior of the compound to usher us in.
I stumbled into the township with the three other Americans, but soon lost them as they made a run for the nearest brothel they could find – a nasty little shack called Los Amazonas.
The streets were teeming with people, many of them locals but with a fair amount of tourists mixed in there; touts were moving in and out of the crowds with flyers for popular bars, and a line of talk to entice people inside.
If the rest of Nuevo Laredo could at best be labelled as low-rent, I wasn’t sure what term could be used to accurately describe the three block walled compound of La Zona. It was, literally, a city within the city – and one dedicated entirely to vice and depravity in all its forms.
The township was established in the sixties as an area to centralize Nuevo Laredo’s bustling prostitution industry, mainly for the use of US soldiers. It had catered to millions of US citizens ever since, many of whom had crossed the border expressly to use its unrivalled services which – at its prime – had even included nightly ‘Donkey Shows’. I’d heard that the days of the donkey had been numbered more recently, however, and found myself being grateful for small mercies.
If the guard post and police station were showing signs of ruin, it was only indicative of the rest of the compound itself. Cartel violence in the city had driven US customers away in droves, and many of the buildings within the zone were empty, abandoned and almost literally falling down. But since Los Zetas had all but won the local drug wars, and the horrific violence was starting to settle down to the merely abhorrent, some of the bars and brothels were starting to regain some of their past sparkle.
I spotted a tout as I wandered the streets, and let myself drift into a position where I could be targeted; if I wanted information, I could spend hours drifting from brothel to bar and back to brothel but – as impatient as I was – I knew there was a quicker way.
‘Hey mano,’ the young kid said, with a smile that seemed almost genuine, ‘how you doin’ tonight? You American, right? Right, course you are, no sweat, right? Right?’
He was in my face now, up close and still grinning from ear to ear. ‘Right,’ I replied, and the kid’s grin spread even wider.
‘You go in here, yeah?’ he said, pointing to a nearby den called Bar Oasis – not one of the worst I’d seen here, but that wasn’t saying much. ‘We got cerveza, we got tequila, all good prices, right? You hand ‘em this flyer,’ he continued, pinning an A5 sheet of paper into my hand, ‘and your first drink’s free! We got titty shows on in there too man, everythin’ you wanna see, action round the back if you want it too. You name it, we got it man, what do you like? Boys, girls, young, old? We got ‘em from fifte
en to eighty in there, right? You ain’t ever gonna believe your eyes, mano.’
I placed a hand on his chest to calm him down some, rested my eyes on his. ‘What I want,’ I said calmly, ‘is a man.’
‘Shit mano, we got them too, you know? Good prices, men too, no problem , you just – ’
‘No, mano, you got me wrong. I’m looking for one very particular man – Santiago Alvarado. You know him?’
‘Yeah mano, I know him,’ the kid said, the smile gone, ‘everyone in this fuckin’ place knows him, right? But how do you know him?’
‘We have a . . . business deal to discuss,’ I said with a mischievous smile of my own. ‘You know? I was told to meet him here.’
‘Oh,’ the kid said, the smile returning. ‘Yeah, Mr. Alvarado, he likes his business.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘So you can tell me where he is then?’
‘Yeah mano, he hangs out in a bar on Cleopatra, place called Casino El Papagayo, it’s right on the corner when you come in, just across from the jail. Only it ain’t no casino, right?’ he said with a wink.
I winked back. ‘I hear ya,’ I said, and slipped him a hundred pesos for his trouble.
‘You sure you don’ wanna get a tequila here first, mano?’ he said in one last-ditch attempt for custom.
I shook my head. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m already late for my meeting with Santiago.’
‘Okay mano,’ he said, turning away from me, flyers extended out toward a pair of locals coming toward him, already latching onto the next prospect.
I turned on my heel and started back the way I’d come. The kid had been right, Casino El Papagayo was just opposite the guard shack and the jail, I’d seen it when I’d come in. It made sense – direct line of sight of the only entrance to La Zona, and nearby police protection built in.
I picked up the pace as I walked, keen to meet Santiago Alvarado at last.
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR MAN: Introducing Colt Ryder - One Man, One Mission, No Rules Page 6
